1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to technology for developing a undeveloped image data generated by a digital camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital still cameras available in recent years have the ability to record RAW image data (undeveloped image data) which represent intensity of incident light into the CCD or other imaging device provided to the digital still camera. The RAW image data recorded onto a memory card in this way is converted to developed image data such as image data in commonly used formats as the JPEG or TIFF formats, and image data for printing out. The conversion from the undeveloped image data to the developed image data is performed with an application program running on a personal computer and so on.
In the process of converting the RAW image data to image data in one of the commonly used formats (referred to as the “development process”), the image quality of the developed image data produced thereby varies appreciably depending on the process conditions (development conditions) used for the development process. Accordingly, the user set the development conditions while checking the result of development with the development condition to be set.
However, where the development process is carried out on RAW image data in response to modification of development condition, depending on the development process, it may take considerable time to generate image for the purpose of checking the development result. As a result, convenience to set development conditions is reduced in some cases.